If You Love This Coast
by AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: Princess Mary Tudor perceives, in a world where something else blooms between Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Thomas Cromwell. AU. Inspired by melliyna's "Rewrite the Stars for You". Title from Xavier Rudd's "Messages".
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Some background: this fic is inspired by "Rewrite the Stars for You" by melliyna (also available under "mihrsuri" on AO3) and her extensive notes about related headcanons on her Tumblr (also mihrsuri). Basically an AU where Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Thomas Cromwell had a secret polyamorous relationship from 1536 onwards.

FFN doesn't allow links, but on AO3, I've included several Tumblr post links that you can take a quick glance at for some more background context, though not strictly necessary.

Major thanks to mihrsuri for giving me permission to play in her universe, and also for sharing such a world with us!

* * *

It starts when the Prince of Wales is born.

Mary almost does not notice it in between her elation and her consternation. Elation, that the kingdom finally has a Prince of Wales, that her father has an heir, and she finally, _finally_ has a brother (she has always wanted a brother, in some bone-deep part of her, even when she herself was Princess of Wales). But also a very real fear that this boy will replace her (she has not forgotten how it felt to be pushed aside by the Holy See, and the brief period when her father was cold to her and she rarely saw her mother, before Anne stepped in).

Still, she is genuinely glad for them, and when she is finally permitted to visit, nearly two days after the birth, her smile is broad and unpracticed. "A thousand congratulations to Your Majesties," she says, curtseying as she enters the chamber. "And long life to His Highness the Prince of Wales."

"Oh, enough with the formalities!" her father booms. Anne sends him a slight frown, still worn from her labor, but smiles tiredly and offers the bundle in her arms to her stepdaughter. Mary comes closer, not taking the baby into her arms (she is not yet a mother, but she can imagine Anne is afraid to let him go quite yet) but smiling down at her brother - _her brother!_

"I did wonder why you decided to name him Thomas," she remarks. "He'll be one among a hundred at court."

Then she catches herself, and glances up in fear at her father. He loves her, and things have been good between them for years now, but how unwise of her to criticize the name he gave his heir-

But Father is only smiling. "He may be one among a hundred courtiers, but among kings, he'll be one of his own - King Thomas the First! And I must say, Anne liked the title rather better than Henry the Ninth or Edward the Sixth."

"Henry." Anne shakes her head. "That was just a perk. We agreed it was the best way to honor my father, the saint, and our most trusted councillor."

A movement on the fringes of the room, and then Mary realizes with a start that the Lord Chancellor is also there. High-ranking though he is, he is a servant, and it seems strange to her that any servants other than the doctors and physicians be present in the room. Her joy is tempered a bit; her father and Anne think quite highly of Cromwell, but she has always been rather wary of his more radical attitudes towards heresy, compared to the middle path that the King and Queen tread.

Still, both the happy occasion and her own upbringing as a princess mean that she graces him with a polite nod, while he bows deeply. As he glances up, a look passes between him and Their Majesties. It is just a look, but Mary feels as though she is suddenly missing something.

She shakes her head, and moves closer to the bed. Anne finally gathers the courage to relinquish her precious boy, and Mary takes him into her arms. Thomas, Prince of Wales - a familiar name in some ways, but new in others. Its origin is perhaps a touch too common, but why should that matter? The man maketh the name, and she is certain her brother will do grand things to his name.

* * *

The next hint comes perhaps six months or so later, shortly before Christmas. Mary is at Hunsdon House to check on her tenants' welfare, but the reports she receives send her on her fastest horse to Whitehall several days before she is due to arrive. She does not even make her greetings to her parents first before going straight to see Lord Chancellor Cromwell.

She bursts into his study unannounced, seething and ready to let him have a piece of her mind, even if it lands her in the Tower. The nuns and monks of the monasteries on her grounds - _her_ tenants, her charges - have been cast out thanks to his dissolutions, in the dead of winter with nowhere else to go. Mary has always turned a blind eye to his policies, knowing that the King and Queen not only trusted but highly esteemed him. But this? This goes against all Christian charity, against everything that is holy.

He jumps to his feet quickly and bows when she enters, but before he has risen up, she has launched into the furious speech she had half-prepared on the mad ride to London. Every cruel appellation - a Lutheran, a heretic, the emissary of Satan - flies off her tongue, and she rages that he will see good men and women of God left to die in the dirt so that he might fill the coffers and his own pockets, and use the proceedings to further his reform agenda. She even snaps that he does not deserve the ennoblement to the Duke of Essex that Their Majesties have planned for him.

Cromwell, to his credit, speaks not one word while she vents her anger upon him. When she has finally calmed down, fear besets her. Mary has set herself against the King's most trusted minister, and while she may be his beloved eldest child, she knows all too well in whose favor the pendulum might swing.

 _Dear God, what have I done…_

But Cromwell is calm, almost amused. He praises her consideration for her dependents and her courage in speaking for them. "I have witnessed the Tudor temper too many times to be intimidated by it, and it is no more than the natural order of things that you should have inherited it as well," he says.

He admits that he was too hasty, too zealous in his approach to the monasteries, and that over Christmastide, he will be glad to discuss with her how they may reach a settlement. "I will assist you in bringing your concerns to Their Majesties' attention," he promises, and when she blanches, he quickly adds, "perhaps with more diplomacy," and she finally breaks into an uneasy laughter.

She leaves soon after, to properly greet Father and Anne, but even as she walks along the corridors, Mary turns the memory of his smile over and over in her mind. It was oddly warm, almost… paternal. Too paternal, even for the King's most trusted advisor to the King's honored eldest daughter. Perhaps Cromwell was remembering his own late daughters, and imagined Mary in their place, speculated on the fully grown women they might have become had the Sweat not snatched them away. Who is she to deny an aging man temporary solace, especially at Yuletide? And he is not as radical as she has always secretly feared; perhaps the word compromise may even be in his vocabulary.


	2. Chapter 2

In mid-1537, Father insists that all his children come to Whitehall to visit. Elizabeth is three by this point, Tommy a year, and Anne is six months pregnant again. The children sleep in their parents' room, much to the scandal of some older courtiers, and want Mary to join but she laughs, claiming that she likes her privacy too much.

She has been working with Master Cromwell - despite his Dukedom, he prefers to be addressed as though he were a knight - on policies relating to the monasteries. He credits her with helping him avoid an uprising, as he had not realized the extent of the discontent, while she is still well-loved enough in the North to know their sentiments. She is glad of to be useful, as some part of her still remembers being an all-but-a-bastard and told she might as well not have been born, for all that she would serve England.

Elizabeth comes in, begging for sweets. Her teeth have been very painful in coming in, and she is clever enough to use it to her advantage to get herself all manner of confectionery. Really, the courtiers who remark that Elizabeth acts with the gravity of a woman of forty years have never seen her when she is wheedling for treats. Mary kindly but firmly says no. She is a doting elder sister, not an indulgent one.

She enters her father's office, to find George and Jane Boleyn there already, saying something about "the need for subtlety". They trail off when they see Mary. Father looks up from the paper he has been working on and waves her in. "Yes, my pearl! Forgive me, my lord and lady of Rochford, I've arranged an audience with her."

The paper in his hand turns out to be Father's will. An important document to prepare, for any and all contingencies, but still one that sends an ill feeling through Mary. "If God should call me to him before Tommy reaches his majority, Anne would be regent, obviously. You would help look after the children, would you not?"

"Of course," Mary says immediately. There are those who still whisper, all these years later, that she is the only true heir, but she will lay her head on the scaffold before she denies Tommy's claim.

"Now if both Anne and I go is where it gets tricky. After serious consideration, I have decided that if Tommy is too young, his regent will be you."

"Me?!"

"With Master Cromwell as Lord Protector."

Mary sets aside her instinctive panic and tries to consider the matter rationally. She could always ask her mother for help; she may have maintained a low profile since the annulment, but she is still popular with the people and had been Regent herself, after all. But while she may be in good health, she is still five years older than Father.

Mary is honored her father trusts her this much, but she is not blind to the fact that she would be a young, presumably unmarried woman, and she is unsure of the respect she would be able to command. Their love, yes, but not necessarily their respect or loyalty.

"I am touched, Father, but surely there are better candidates - his kin, such as his uncle George Boleyn, or his grandfather."

"You are his kin as well," Father says, "and a Tudor too. And most of all, there is no one I trust better than you."

He smiles with pride, and Mary realizes that it is an apology of sorts, for demoting her from heir. She may still be legitimate, and happy with her lot in life, but the ground she stands on has never been quite as firm since she was Princess of Wales.

Placing her in the role of regent and Cromwell in Lord Protector is also a balancing act. She leans more towards the Catholic faith and has the love of nobles and commoners alike, while Cromwell will appease the reformer faction and bring his own set of allies to the Regency table.

Still, there are those who despise him, such as Norfolk, and while her dealings with Cromwell have shown that he is capable, Mary is not sure she would trust him to keep his fanatical leanings in check when he has virtually unlimited power as Lord Protector.

She hopes never to test such a theory.

Mary returns to the nursery, only to catch Elizabeth and Tommy enjoying what else, but a stash of sweets. Elizabeth evidently finagled Thomas into stealing them, as the younger and more innocent one. Now they are sharing their loot.

She shakes her head. Mary would turn a blind eye, but the future King of England must learn obedience, and Elizabeth cannot afford any stomachaches on top of her toothaches. "Bessie, Tommy, hand them over. Now."

She is hard-pressed not to laugh at the twin frowns on their faces.

* * *

George, Duke of York, is born in October 1537, named for his maternal uncle. There is some slight disappointment that he inherited his mother's black hair rather than the Tudor red, but Father only laughs and says that Anne deserves a child at last who looks like her. Mary is his godmother, as is his namesake uncle, and Cromwell too - something that her father smirks at when he announces it. Perhaps at the thought of how some more high-ranking man might feel slighted. Although no one will really be put at out at being snubbed for a second son's godfather. Elizabeth is old enough to carry out important tasks, and she carries the chrism cloth as well at the christening.

With the arrival of another child, it seems that Cromwell is _always_ around, holding him himself, playing with them, checking on how they are progressing. It is appropriate for him to take a hand in their royal education, and for them to be familiar with the man who may one day be their Lord Protector, but when Tommy does not even have all of his teeth yet? Bessie and Tommy even call him "Uncle Thomas"!

Then again, they also call Anthony Knivert "Uncle Anthony", the Duke of Suffolk "Uncle Charles", and her mother "Aunt Katherine" on the rare occasions she visits court, despite sharing no blood with them. The children love him, and who is she to complain about that? Every man who is prepared to be a champion to them is a blessing.

* * *

It is nearly six, perhaps seven months before she realizes it, and Mary might never have if Cromwell did not spend so much time around them. As much as they crow George's resemblance to his mother, it strikes her quite unexpectedly one day. She watches him totter around the nursery, how his curls bounce, and she realizes where she has seen those curls before. Anne's hair is sleek and straight, and not even the sweat of childbirth has rendered it frizzy. George did not inherit the texture of his hair from his mother, nor that jaw, nor that brow.

She smiles tightly and waits until he is ready to be fed by his wet nurse, when she leaves immediately for her apartments.

In retrospect, she is surprised she did not realize it earlier. It makes sense, considering how much he is always around Anne. And right underneath Father's nose, no less!

Mary has always loved Anne as a friend, almost like a second mother. And this?

She is tempted to go straight to Father with this news. No matter how besotted he was with Anne, knowing she put a cuckoo in the royal nest will erase any love he held for her forever. And it was not that long ago that their marriage was remarkably chilly, before Tommy was born.

But something tells her that Father would have noticed already. He may be stubbornly dense at times, but he is not stupid. And he would never have tolerated such a crime and an insult to his pride and dignity. She holds her silence, until she knows that the King and Queen will be taking a walk in their private gardens.

Mary garbs herself in the inconspicuous attire of one of her own lady-in-waitings and positions herself in a hidden hedge. And sure enough, she sees Father, Anne, _and_ Cromwell. He does not follow behind them, but right in step, almost touching.

Cromwell says something, and Father laughs so loudly she can hear it from across the pond. He throws an arm around Cromwell, like he might with Uncle Suffolk, except there is something intimate and decidedly unbrotherly about the gesture. Anne watches them with a fond expression, and from that one exchange, Mary knows the full truth of it, what is there between the three of them, knows that her father already knows the paternity of his youngest child and that telling him will do no good.

The grace period in which she can be gone without arousing notice is almost over; she turns away and hurries back inside.


	3. Chapter 3

She spends perhaps two hours or so in her chambers alone, sending away even Susan Clarencius, her closest lady. This secret is one she must carry alone, for the moment. She needs the time to pray to God, to get all the shaking and sweating out of her body, the sobs of outrage (though they are surprisingly few). Otherwise in this state, she feels as though they would know she knows with one look at her face.

When she is finally composed, she pinches her cheeks to get some color in them, straightens her hood, and practices smiling until it is as natural as can be.

Tommy and George are napping when Mary steps into the nursery, but Elizabeth is awake and practicing her writing. Mary sits at the table and watches her, complimenting her by rote on her progress. The sunlight shines on her red hair as Bessie turns and tilts her head, and Mary knows that Elizabeth at least is her sister. Thomas, even sleeping, is the image of her father - no worries there. Which leaves George. She strokes one finger over his cheek. Even relaxed and asleep, he is definitely Cromwell's bastard son.

A bastard child being passed off as a legitimate prince. Not even her father's bastard off of a mistress, but the bastard offspring of two common-born adulterers, with not a drop of Tudor blood in him.

George snuffles and turns over in his sleep. Mary shuts her eyes and leaves.

* * *

She can never tell anyone.

Father might have cherished and feted her ever since his marriage to Anne, but that love will disappear in an instant the moment she speaks out. If he can condone himself being cuckolded and engage in sodomy, she cannot trust him. He could have her banished from court, if not imprisoned or silenced somehow else.

The scandal could very well rile up a civil war. There would be those who refuse to believe any ill of the Queen who gave them two princes and despise Mary for accusing her. Then there would be those anti-reformers who would leap at the opportunity to see Anne and Cromwell gone. If the unrest over the monasteries was alarming, this would be as bad as the Cousins' War. And she knows what happens to royal heirs whose legitimacy is disputed.

No matter how much Elizabeth and Tommy resemble Father and his side of the family, their paternity would be forever suspect. They could be imprisoned like their great-uncles the Princes in the Tower or even disposed of quietly. George would grow up under a cloud of shame at best, and wind up in an unmarked grave at worst.

Why has her father done this? _What_ is so special about Cromwell that he would allow him to lay with his wife, bed him himself, allow him to get a child on his wife, and put that bastard in the line of succession?

Utter madness.

Mary almost wishes he could have just taken a mistress like a normal King!

Does he care that he is putting this child before Mary? That George will come before any other legitimate boys he may have?

For over a year, she had worked in close proximity with Cromwell, developing a respect for the man, and he had smiled at her, knowing full well what he was doing under her nose

What if Tommy dies young and George becomes King?

 _Oh God._

Cromwell is Lord Protector in the event of Father and Anne's deaths.

If Tommy comes to the throne before his majority, Cromwell will be virtually the most powerful man in England. Mary might be the Regent, but she is still a woman and there is no telling what such a turncoat might get up to.

Now she knows why her father chose him for Lord Protector instead of Anne's male kin and the real reason he chose the name for his Prince of Wales.

* * *

Who else knows?

Such a secret cannot be maintained without at least a few people being in on it. George and Jane Boleyn know, Mary is almost sure of it. Now that she knows what to listen for, she hears he jokes about "Your Majesty owing me a great deal" and "lessons in subtlety and decorum" for what they are and it makes her stomach curdle. So her father is not even discreet about his affair. Perhaps one day she could - reveal them in the act, somehow, should she ever summon up the courage.

She had thought Lord Rochford an honorable, if reformist, man, and she had regarded Lady Rochford as a friend. The betrayals will only pile up from here.

Other servants must know as well; neither a King nor a Queen is ever alone. Mary is both awed and terrified by how strong their loyalty must be, considering the secret has never been revealed.

Cromwell sends her a message asking if she would like to continue their work on the monasteries, and it is all she can do to compose a polite message back that she feels their collaboration has come to a natural end.

She needs to get away from court, where she sees Cromwell "advising" his royal masters at meals, where she sees the three of them take walks in the royal gardens, where George looks more and more like him every day. She is as lost as the day the Pope annulled her parents' marriage and her status went into limbo.

She needs her mother.

At least now Mary has the liberty to leave court whenever she wishes and depart for her mother's estates (now the Duchess of Derby).


	4. Chapter 4

Mary's mother still has the right to be addressed as "Your Highness", as she is both the Dowager Princess and an Infanta of Spain. But she hates the first title and would prefer to be addressed by the second but is wise enough not to be, so she is usually known as the Duchess of Derby. Father had given the title to Mother after the annulment, knowing she would detest having to revert to the title pertaining to her first marriage, and also to show that she was still held in high esteem by giving her Margaret Beaufort's old title.

It had been a kind gesture, but as Mary rides to her mother's manor, she thinks that it is not enough. Her mother's twenty years of reigning had been not ended, but erased with the annulment. She had stepped down, accepted the Pope's judgment in the hopes that Anne could give England legitimate princes that would rule.

 _Legitimate_ princes.

Sons that would never come from Mary's mother's womb.

No matter how much respect and comfort Mother enjoys now, she will never be able to achieve the goal she had worked towards since she was younger than Mary is now. And Father and Anne had repaid that sacrifice by taking a conjugal lover and putting a bastard in the succession.

Mother is drafting a letter of thanks to Anne when Mary arrives, for having arranged one of her old lady-in-waiting's marriages. Mary marvels that the Queen of England and former Queen are so close that they can have such gracious correspondence like this, and her mother doesn't even know what the younger woman has done.

"To have come here so suddenly, without word? And that look on your face? Something troubles you," Mother says as she sets aside the paper.

"I have simply realized that I am getting older," Mary deflects, not yet ready to reveal the truth. "I have my own marriage prospects to consider. And Father has made me Regent in his will, should he and the Queen go before their time. My childhood has ended, and it is time to think of matrimony and contingencies."

"Then that is no great trouble. Not pleasant to consider, of course, but a part of life. And have you forgotten this old woman served as regent and won the Battle of Flodden Field in her day?"

"My lady mother is hardly old," Mary says, smiling despite herself, and it is all Mother needs to go off, talking about her time fighting against the Scots and overseeing the minutiae and milestones of a realm. It feels good to see her mother in her element, as a Queen - for a Queen Katherine of Aragon shall always be. She may no longer be young, but she is still every inch an Infanta of Spain and the most formidable woman to ever set foot on England's shores. It is enough to galvanize Mary into seriously appraising the prospect of acting. She and her mother could take Elizabeth, Tommy, and George under their wings and keep them safe. They are not Richard, after all. The Holy Father and Emperor would throw their weight behind their cause and help take England by storm.

It is a comforting thought, almost like slipping back into her childhood at Ludlow, the idyll she has never quite been able to find again. But the return to Whitehall places her firmly back in the present day. She trots past the hamlets she spent half her life believing she would rule, and then spent the other half of her life unlearning the expectation she would rule. The sheer enormity of what her half-formed thoughts of a coup could mean hits her.

Can she really dethrone her own father, who sired her and loved her? Who, when he was not desperate for a son, had been adoringly fond of the only child he was granted for so long and called her the pearl of his world? Once Mary had come back to court, he had made it plain she was the first lady at court after Anne and his sisters, and never allowed anyone else to think otherwise. It was not that he thought her incapable or irrelevant as a daughter, only that England needed a son - he has even made her Regent in his will.

Anne, who reunited her with her mother and welcomed her back to court. Her stepmother has been surpassingly kind to her, far more than anyone would expect a king's second wife to be of his nearly-grown, all-but bastard daughter who is half-foreign. Anne herself had advocated for Mary's status as princess to be solidified and for her to be placed ahead of any daughters she had.

Mary's half-siblings, especially when she has longed for companions of her blood since earliest infancy. They would forever resent her and might set themselves against her on the battlefield. Even if Mary tries her best to be kind to them, she is not sure she could expect Bessie and Tommy to choose her over their own parents.

The English people, who have always been loyal to her, will not appreciate the prospect of civil war, no matter the banner under which it is fought. Right may be right and wrong may be wrong, but that has little bearing on the harsh reality of day-to-day struggle and the calamities of war. And since Tommy at least is legitimate (and healthy so far, thanks be to God), should Mary not simply let it rest and leave well enough alone?

Upon returning, she cloisters herself in her chapel. Mary had hoped that visiting Mother would set things clear, but it has only made her more torn. Is it not a sin to stand by as this is inflicted on England? To turn a blind eye to adultery and sodomy?

To let her own rights be trampled upon? What kind of king will they teach Tommy to be? She likely never would have been Queen of England anyway, but to know that a bastard who is not even royal is in line before her…

Why had God allowed it to progress this far? Why had He not struck down Cromwell when he first fornicated with his King and Queen? Why had He allowed the Duke of York to be a false bastard?

Why had Father and Anne inflicted such a fate upon a helpless infant?

Can she wrong her mother by remaining silent?

She prays all through night, the way she did as a child, when she was separated from her mother, banished by her father, and all but a bastard. Dawn finds her still there.

The first thing she sees when she glances up is three parallel beams of light, just behind the cross on the altar, and she perceives an absolute clarity, the kind that seizes a person for a single infinite moment and then vanishes.

Mary blinks herself to full wakefulness and becomes conscious of the aches and cramps that come from spending the night on a hard chapel floor. She is still in her traveling habit, and finds indentations of rosary pearls on her fingers.

She glances at the altar again, but the sun has risen more now, and the room is bathed in the rainbow light of stained glass windows rather than one narrow chink.

Mary glares at the cross, as though demanding of God, _what in Your Name are You trying to tell me?_ Displaying his favor for the unorthodox triumvirate that graces the throne, and indicating Mary should do the same? It is a reference to her three siblings, Bessie, Tommy, and George? To the Trinity? Or is it just a reflection of the light and Mary's feverish mind resorting to baseless superstition in order to construct something remotely resembling an answer?

With rather more ire than is proper in a holy place, she flings aside her rosary, and it clatters on the flagstones.


	5. Chapter 5

It is Elizabeth, Thomas, and George who decide it for Mary, far more than any sign of God.

She knows what happens to bastards too close to the throne: their little great-uncles the Princes in the Tower, their cousin the Earl of Warwick and Lady Salisbury's brother. Even Mary herself has suffered under the brand of all but the King's bastard daughter, and been mistreated by those who thought she no longer had her father's protection.

 _For your sake, I will condone adultery, sodomy, and treason. I will allow myself to be cheated out of my rights and my mother to be insulted. I will keep silent when I know of treachery and answer for it before God when I am dead. I will allow you to unwittingly sully the Tudor bloodline, because I love you too much to bring a bastard's fate upon you._

* * *

Father figures her out, during a private family gathering in their chambers where Cromwell is, of course, present. She is not sure exactly how, though perhaps it is because every time Cromwell speaks, she shudders. She edges away from him every time he comes near. But the defining moment was probably when Elizabeth wanted to ask Mary her opinion on the parable of Jacob, Rachel, and Bilhah. She should have dissembled and given her answer more tactfully. But when she knows precisely why her parents had asked Elizabeth to study that story, it is difficult to remain calm, and she brushes Elizabeth off with a brusque, "Not tonight, Bessie. Why don't you play on the virginals for me instead?"

Elizabeth pouts, but that is the least of Mary's problems as she glances at her father instinctively, only to see full-blown _realization_ in his eyes. In that instant, she knows that he knows that she knows, and in the next instant, he has let Anne and Cromwell know without speaking.

Father says something about going into the inner room, for the grown-ups to "have a private talk", and Mary nods, smiling placidly as her head begins to pound and her tongue goes dry. In the short walk from the parlor to the inner chambers, she is drenched with sweat.

They sit down, Father exchanging dark looks with Anne and Cromwell, and Mary knows she is right to be afraid. He may be her proud, adoring papa, but he also exiled her and separated her from her mother, and nothing can ever erase that from her memory.

In the next instant, she realizes that he is afraid as well. She still holds power, with the Emperor, the Pope, and the North at her back. She could destroy him, his loves, and his children.

"You know?" Father's voice is almost a whisper.

She could deny it, or play dumb, but somehow, Mary knows that all she can do is nod.

"You know _everything_?" he presses, and she knows he is referring to what is between him and Cromwell, to the three-way nature of what they do. She nods again.

"How?"

"George's face," Mary says. "And my own observation."

"Then -"

They confer in harried whispers, of which Mary hears only snatches. Anne is urging mercy, that it is natural Mary would not understand, while Cromwell urges caution. He has George to protect, after all, and the farthest to fall.

Although it saddens Mary, she knows her father will choose them over her. He will sacrifice her for a son that isn't even his, and she must act now, before they choose desperation over sense.

"I have-" Her voice squeaks, and she swallows. "I have not told anyone since I realized. They are my siblings, my own - all of them. God has sent me three siblings to protect, and I intend to take Him up on the offer." There had been a moment, when she realized where George inherited his hair and brow from, but every word she says is true.

Anne and Cromwell relax slightly at her words, the panic in their eyes dulling down to disconcert. But Father wants more, and retrieves the Bible from the nearby _pre-dieu,_ hefting it expectantly onto the table before her. She cannot blame him; if she were meddling in a similarly mad affair, she would secure a solemn oath out of anyone who knows.

It is one thing to watch and say nothing, for the secret to rot inside of her like withering vines of ivy. But to swear it out loud, before God?

Her freedom, perhaps even her life, hangs in the balance.

She places her right hand on the good book. "I swear, by the contents of this book and on my immortal soul, that I will always protect and defend my siblings - Thomas, Prince of Wales; George, Duke of York; and the Princess Elizabeth - and never do anything that would harm them."

She cannot bring herself to condone their affair explicitly in an oath. But revealing it would harm the children, and Father, Anne, and Cromwell sense her unspoken meaning.

She sits down and sighs, feeling impossibly tired suddenly. Mary looks at Anne, who in a way has always been the more approachable of the two. "I would never harm them, no matter their blood. But if someone else notices the resemblance between the Duke of York and the Duke of Essex? Once you have seen it, it is impossible to forget."

Unspoken is the accusation: _Have you taken leave of your senses? Why would you court danger like this? An affair is one thing, but to create a child out of it whose face proclaims it to the world?_

Father clears his throat, although he regards Mary less warily, now that he is assured of her loyalty. "He takes after his mother's side of the family, and his namesake uncle. And we can always blame his curls on his Welsh ancestry."

"Most of the court might accept the story, but if my lady mother found out, any hint of a good relationship between her and Your Majesties would evaporate. She would stop at nothing to remove you, and any tender feelings she might have had towards Bessie and Tommy would not stop her from declaring them bastards. And she is intelligent enough to see it."

She tries to keep betrayal out of her voice. Their truce is still recent, and she must not give Father and Anne any reason to suspect she resents choosing them over her mother. But she knows that Mother would never understand her decision, and so Mary must lie to her for the rest of her life.

Katherine of Aragon had impressed in her the value of God and her conscience, during the Great Matter, but that was a time when only they would be hurt by following their consciences. Mary must weigh her personal conscience weighed against three young children's fates (and her own safety). Call it sinful, but she knows which she will choose.

"The Duchess of Derby spends most of her time away from court, and prefers to avoid me when possible," Cromwell says unironically. The color is starting to come back into his face. "I suspect you caught on because of our work on the monasteries, and how much time we spent in proximity - I wondered why our acquaintance came to such an abrupt end."

Mary has no reply, and looks away.

"But I doubt there is anyone else at court who spends time with both the younger royal children and with me enough to notice anything. If the secret has never been so much as hinted at, when many despise me, I think it is safe to say it shall survive longer."

Father has calmed down from his panic, but still looks somewhat guilty in a way. "It is not that you are not good enough, my pearl, that George sits in the succession above you. It is merely that we are married before God, not before the world but before God. We can never reveal it while we live, but -"

Father is tripping over his words, stumbling in a way Mary has never seen him do so, and she knows why he is still worried. If Tommy dies, then by blood, Mary would be queen next, but by law, George is next.

"I would never presume to judge Your Majesties," Mary says hurriedly. She has said her piece about her siblings; she has no more wish to know the details of their affair. Did they plan George's paternity? Or did they - _take turns_ \- so often that they didn't know until he was born?

She shuts her eyes. She will _not_ think about her parents like that. "And while I cannot pretend that I fully understand your arrangement, I cannot ignore the fact that God has not condemned you for it, but smiled upon you and sent you two healthy sons."

There is a knock at door, and it is Lady Bryan, saying that the children are growing fussy and want to say good night.

Mary is glad for the revelation in a way, as though a weight has been taken off her shoulders. Better to have it out in the open than remain silent forever.

But her father will never quite trust her again, now that she has this knowledge and this power. And oh, he had named her Regent, she remembers with a dull thud to her stomach. He will not do so now She will retain her place at court, but he is not foolish enough to give her that kind of authority

Mary lifts up her chin. She still has more than when she was ten years old and bastardized and expected to live out the rest of her life either in obscurity or marriage to some underling. She is a Princess of the Blood, beloved by the country, respected and loved if not fully trusted by the King and Queen, and the idolized sister of three siblings. She comes before any other girls in the succession and has unreserved access to her mother. It is this awareness that enables her to smile as she swings Tommy and George onto her hips to tell them goodnight and kisses Elizabeth on the forehead.


	6. Chapter 6

Cromwell asks to resume work on the monasteries, and Mary is grateful to proceed, to have steady work to occupy her mind beyond needlework and her tenants. She can admit that he is a capable and loyal man, and that there are worse Piers Gavestons her father could have picked. And he has always been respectful and conscientious of Mary.

There is still a bit of fear in Father's eyes every time he looks at her, but he also dotes upon her and invites her often to spend time with the children. George's first birthday comes around, and it is a double celebration, that God has sent them two healthy sons. Mary makes a point of curtseying deeply to both Tommy and George, in front of the court. Usually Tommy bows to her, since she is a lady and much older than him, a gesture her father allows out of deference and indulgence. But she must emphasize her loyalty, especially now when everything is in the open.

The Duchess of Derby is also there. Mary had been half-afraid that her mother would notice something in his face, but thankfully George seems to be losing his curls with age, and the resemblance is less apparent.

It still sickens her at times, the magnitude of lies she is hiding from her mother.

 _You were forced into it, put under duress. Your life was at risk._

But that is the coward's way out, more lies. If she had refused to swear the vow, Father might have banished her from court or elsewise removed her from any position of power, but he would not have necessarily executed her. She had a choice, to make a stand for the truth, and she didn't. She thought of her half-siblings' lives, true, but she also wanted to remain at court, to have his love and her position and influence as eldest Princess, and she made a conscious decision to trade her mother and her own integrity for it.

Mary Tudor owns her choices.

It becomes easier, with time, to work with Cromwell, to push down the disgust and the complicated mass of emotions within her. Easier to forget his appetites and his leanings, to forget that her father will never fully trust her again, when before he had been willing to make her Regent.

She has her mother, she has her siblings, she has her title.

It's more than she ever thought to have when she was ten.

* * *

Elizabeth, Tommy, and George continue to grow, coherency taking firmer root in their speech and their understanding of the world. Bessie and Tommy continue to call Cromwell "Uncle Thomas", but they are canny enough to do so only in private. George follows their lead, or at least as much as a boy of one can do so, but he seems to gravitate as much towards his natural father as his royal one.

 _Will they ever know the truth?_ For all that they are brilliant, they are still young, too impulsive to know the discretion needed to keep such an explosive secret. Does Cromwell mourn that he will never be able to claim his youngest son? She has heard of the two daughters he lost all those years ago to the Sweat, and it must be painful to lose another child, in a different way. But then he has made his career in the shadows, and perhaps he has found a way to enjoy being a father in the shadows as well.

She had worried about what kind of influence the Duke of Essex would be on the children, but on the contrary, they seem all the richer for his presence in their lives. He balances Father and Anne out, a calming influence to their more passionate royal parents - something she can see after months of observing the arrangement with a dispassionate eye, now that the instinctual disgust has been cleared. And if she is honest, she is almost jealous that they have three parents so utterly devoted to them, when she remembers a time when she had not a single parent to which to turn. It's the weight of that memory, more than anything, that pushes her from mute acceptance of the arrangement to grudging appreciation. At least the children will never want for love.

Anne summons Mary so they can start talking about her marriage with serious consideration, and Mary remembers that her stepmother has always been as attentive to her as her own mother. Katherine of Aragon, of course, will play a major role in her daughter's matrimonial deliberations, but Anne, as Queen, also has some input to give.

"There are the contingencies to be planned for," Anne says, referring discretely to the fact that there are those, few but far in between, who would pledge their allegiance to Mary above Thomas. "If your husband is a prince or king, and you leave to become queen of another country, it would be easier since you would have your own life there across the Channel. But if he is a Duke or of another lower standing, and comes here to marry you, then we would have to be absolutely sure of his character and loyalty, especially as you would be Regent in the event-"

Mary is so shocked that she interrupts her queen. " _Regent_?"

Anne stops mid-sentence, blinking. "Yes, regent. Decider of all royal matters until Tommy reaches his majority?"

"No - but that - I would still be Regent?"

"Only if you choose to live your married life in England, we would hardly expect you to uproot your life across the sea to come back."

"No - I mean, Father still intends to name me Regent _at all_ in his will?"

"Yes," Anne says wryly. "We did discuss that, before George was born, right?"

"But I had thought…"

Her parents and Cromwell had been as kind as ever to Mary after she swore on the Bible, but kindness is not the same thing as trust, and she had not dared to hope for the latter. But this… knowing that she is still a Catholic at heart, that she still feels resentment on her mother's behalf, and they are still willing to put their children's lives in her hands, still absolutely convinced that she will not abuse her power.

Her father does trust and believe in her after all.

Tension she had not even noticed eases from her frame, and she feels three times as light-headed as when she entered the room. "Yes, of course," Mary says, covering her false step. "I would not marry any man who seeks to abuse his proximity to the Regency, in the unlikely event that I must serve in that capacity. The real challenge will be detecting what is truly in his heart."

Anne smiles. "That qualification alone narrows down the pool considerably. Fortunately, there are a few eligible men who have shown not only interest in your hand, but also signs of being worthy of it. Now for the Duke of Bavaria…"

* * *

 **A/N** : It's been a while, but I wanted to go ahead and post this final chapter. Much thanks again to Lil for this universe!


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